Great White Dope

We can’t describe nerdcore genius MC Chris any better than he did himself in “Ten Year Old,” the first song off his second record, Knowing His Half the Hassle: “I sound like a 10-year-old / Or so I’ve been told / But you don’t need a voice that’s low to make the microphone gold.”

To our ears, much of hip-hop’s badass attitude comes off as unintentional self-parody. The great thing about Chris (born Christopher Brendan Ward IV in the white-bread Chicago suburb of Libertyville) is that he seems like a true badass, albeit in the least-threatening sense. In other words, it’s rap music tailor-made for nerds.

Nerdcore’s biggest star performing on Halloween night? It’ll be geek heaven on Earth when the cartoon-voiced rapper takes the stage at Club Red. But here’s a piece of advice, from one nerd to another: When you go, just make sure your Boba Fett costume is better than the dozens of others there just like it.